Changes made since CMake 3.8 include the following.
- Visual Studio Generators for VS 2010 and above learned to support
the ASM_NASM language when nasm is installed.
- The Xcode generator learned to create Xcode schema files.
This is an experimental feature and can be activated by setting the
CMAKE_XCODE_GENERATE_SCHEME variable to a TRUE value.
- A CheckIPOSupported module was added to help projects
check whether interprocedural optimization (IPO) is supported by
the current toolchain and CMake version.
- The CMakeFindDependencyMacro module find_dependency macro
now forwards all arguments to the underlying find_package()
call. Existing uses will continue to function as before, but callers can
now access the full suite of arguments that find_package() accepts.
- The FeatureSummary module feature_summary() command now
accepts the new DEFAULT_DESCRIPTION option that will print the default
title for the selected package type.
- The FeatureSummary module gained a new
FeatureSummary_<TYPE>_DESCRIPTION variable that can be defined
for each <TYPE> to replace the type name with the specified string
whenever the package type is used in an output string by the module.
- The FindDoxygen module learned to control Doxygen behavior using
CMake variables and generate documentation via the newly added
doxygen_add_docs() function. The Doxygen input file (Doxyfile)
is automatically generated and doxygen is run as part of a custom target.
Additional components can be specified to find optional tools: dot,
mscgen and dia.
- The FindMPI module now provides imported targets.
- The FindProtobuf module protobuf_generate_cpp()
command gained an EXPORT_MACRO option to specify the name of
a DLL export markup macro.
- The FindProtobuf module now supports usage of static libraries
for Unix via a new Protobuf_USE_STATIC_LIBS input variable.
- The FindProtobuf module now provides imported targets
when the libraries are found.
- A new GoogleTest module was added to provide the
gtest_add_tests() function independently of the FindGTest
module. The function was also updated to support keyword arguments, with
functionality expanded to allow a test name prefix and suffix to be
specified, the dependency on the source files to be optional and the list of
discovered test cases to be returned to the caller.
- The ctest_submit() command gained a HTTPHEADER option
to specify custom headers to send during submission.
- The ctest(1) executable gained new options which allow the
developer to disable automatically adding tests to the test set to satisfy
fixture dependencies. -FS prevents adding setup tests for fixtures
matching the provided regular expression, -FC prevents adding cleanup
tests for matching fixtures and -FA prevents adding any test for matching
fixtures.
- A DISABLED test property was added to mark tests that
are configured but explicitly disabled so they do not run.
- Interprocedural optimization (IPO) is now supported for GNU and Clang
compilers using link time optimization (LTO) flags. See the
INTERPROCEDURAL_OPTIMIZATION target property and
CheckIPOSupported module.
- The TARGET_OBJECTS
generator expression
is now supported by the add_custom_command() and
file(GENERATE) commands.
- Two new informational generator expressions to retrieve Apple Bundle
directories have been added. The first one $<TARGET_BUNDLE_DIR:tgt>
outputs the full path to the Bundle directory, the other one
$<TARGET_BUNDLE_CONTENT_DIR:tgt> outputs the full path to the
Contents directory of macOS Bundles and App Bundles. For all other
bundle types and SDKs it is identical with $<TARGET_BUNDLE_DIR:tgt>.
The new expressions are helpful to query Bundle locations independent of
the different Bundle types and layouts on macOS and iOS.
- An explicit deprecation diagnostic was added for policies CMP0036
and below. The cmake-policies(7) manual explains that the
OLD behaviors of all policies are deprecated and that projects should
always port to the NEW behaviors as soon as possible.
- The Visual Studio 8 2005 generator is now deprecated
and will be removed in a future version of CMake.
- The Visual Studio 7 .NET 2003 generator has been removed.
- The Xcode generator dropped support for Xcode versions
older than 3.
- The FindDoxygen module has deprecated several variables.
- The version of curl bundled with CMake no longer accepts URLs of the form
file://c:/... on Windows due to a change in upstream curl 7.52. Use
the form file:///c:/... instead to work on all versions.
- When using AUTOMOC, CMake now scans for the presence of the
Q_PLUGIN_METADATA macro and reruns moc when the file from the
macro’s FILE argument changes.
- When AUTOMOC detects an include statement of the form
#include "moc_<basename>.cpp" the search for the respective header file
now looks in the INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES of the target as well.
- When running tests, CTest learned to treat skipped tests (using the
SKIP_RETURN_CODE property) the same as tests with the new
DISABLED property. Due to this change, CTest will not indicate
failure when all tests are either skipped or pass.
- The Ninja generator has loosened the dependencies of object
compilation. Object compilation now depends only on custom targets
and custom commands associated with libraries on which the object’s target
depends and no longer depends on the libraries themselves. Source files
in dependent targets may now compile without waiting for their targets’
dependencies to link.
- On macOS, RPATH settings such as BUILD_WITH_INSTALL_RPATH
no longer affect the install_name field. See policy CMP0068.
- The Visual Studio 14 2015 generator has been taught about
a change to the v140 toolset made by a VS 2015 update. VS changed
the set of values it understands for the GenerateDebugInformation
linker setting that produces the -DEBUG linker flag variants.
Changes made since CMake 3.9.0 include the following.
- The find_ command PACKAGE_ROOT search path group added by
CMake 3.9.0 has been removed for the 3.9 series due to regressions
caused by new use of <PackageName>_ROOT variables. The behavior
may be re-introduced in the future in a more-compatible way.
- On macOS, the default application bundle Info.plist file no longer
enables Hi-DPI support as it did in 3.9.0 and 3.9.1. The change had
to be reverted because it broke iOS applications.
- The Xcode generator no longer adds “outputPaths” to custom script
build phases as it did in 3.9.0 and 3.9.1. This was added in an
attempt to support Xcode 9’s new build system, but broke incremental
rebuilds for both the old and new Xcode build systems.